Cool cats: Area lakes can provide for tasty fall fishing

Although deer, doves and quail demand a lot of outside time as cool fall temperatures drive away the oppressive summer heat, some outdoor enthusiasts are also opting for a little angling action.

Many area lakes hold good numbers of channel and blue catfish just waiting for the right bait to be dropped in the right place at the right time. Fall is when the cats can really launch into a feeding frenzy.

“I really believe the fishing is always better in the cold,” said Ray Austin of TopCat Professional Fishing Guide Service. “The lakes are a whole lot more wide open, so with fewer fishermen there is a lot better chance of catching fish. The baitfish are balled up rather than all spread out, and that attracts the catfish.

“There are a lot of people who would rather be in a warm deer blind than on the water when it is cold, but if you don’t mind a little chilly weather, the fishing can be great.”

Austin specializes in big catfish — lunkers tipping the scales at 20, 30 and 40 pounds are not uncommon — at Lake McQueeney and other lakes on the Guadalupe River, in addition to the Highland Lakes. But he has also built a reputation of putting anglers on limits of the smaller, good-eating blue catfish found in Choke Canyon Reservoir.

“Most of the lakes have better fishing from November through February,” Austin said. “Choke Canyon often really kicks in around April.”

The Choke Canyon catfish can be found everywhere from the shallows to water 75 feet deep or more. The only change in Austin’s fishing technique is to use heavier weights to carry baited hooks to the bottom of deeper catfish holes.

Austin favors Big Marv’s Cheese Punch Bait, made in Gillett, as his go-to catfish catcher, covering a No. 6-8 treble hook with a ball of the smelly concoction about the size of a dime.

“If you use too much bait in the cold water, you can cover the barbs of the hook and will lose some fish,” he said.

Closer to San Antonio, T.J. Whitworth of TJ’s Guide Service is building a reputation as a top-notch catfish guide who owns the record for the largest channel catfish landed at Calaveras Lake. His record, caught on Feb. 28 of this year, weighed 7.86 pounds and measured 24.75 inches in length.

The previous Calaveras record was a 6.2 pound, 25-inch long channel catfish caught on Dec. 21, 2007, by Chuck Dewey of San Antonio.

“When it starts to turn cold, the catfish really start to bite,” Whitworth said. “Normally the action gets hot toward the end of October or the first of November and continues through about March.”

Whitworth said his prize catch was one of three hefty channels that topped 6 pounds he caught from one small area of the lake he likes to frequent as temperatures cool down.

The Calaveras Lake guide said the bait he favors, which is the one that enticed his record channel into biting, is Catfish Gold Stick Bait that is produced in Prosper.

Whitworth likes to shape a ball of Catfish Gold bait about the size of a peach pit around a No. 6 treble hook, with a quarter-ounce weight attached to the line about 12-18 inches above the hook.

Catfish typically lurk in deeper water at Calaveras during the fall, with many of his “honey holes” at areas ranging from 15-25 feet deep near channels and dropoffs.

Another of the guide’s tricks is to attract hungry catfish by tossing a combination of horse and mule feed and cattle pellets in the areas he is planning to fish. The scattered bait, particularly the large pellets, can attract catfish from quite a distance.

Randy Myers, biologist with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department based at San Antonio, said catfish are a prime target of anglers at Calaveras Lake.

“Anytime the water temperature is in the 70-80 degree range is prime time,” said Myers, explaining that the warm water discharge from the CPS Energy coal-fired plant helps maintain the temperature of the water.

“The lake provides a highly fertile environment with all kinds of bait so the catfish can do very well.”